FREEPORT — On what could certainly be considered an off night, Dakota was still good enough to beat probably its only true NUIC East challenger in two sets.

The undefeated Indians escaped a rough opening set and then Sarah Thompson helped put the match away for the Indians in a 25-22, 25-18 road win Monday over Aquin. The win gave Dakota (6-0 East) its 22nd victory in 22 matches.

Thompson recorded 9 of her 10 kills in the second set, seven of which came in the Indians’ 10-4 run that closed the match.

“We have some good options and some plays that we can run,” Dakota coach Shannon Williams said, “but there are times where we just need to simplify it, just go to what’s working and she was working and we took advantage of that.”

The Indians looked as though they were on their way winning the first set without much trouble when they opened up a 19-13 lead, but then they began having all kinds of problems and let the Bulldogs (4-2) back in it, mostly because of their own mistakes.

“We had out of system stuff that we normally handle, just miscommunication and stuff like that,” Williams said. “We were not moving our feet. Even defensively we weren’t making those plays that we should be able to make. We just kind of fell apart.”

Despite Dakota’s struggles, the Bulldogs weren’t able to dig themselves out of the hole that was partly their own creation. Aquin had a particularly hard time from behind the service line in the first set, committing six service errors.

“I think it was just nerves,” Aquin coach Courtney Pehl said. “It just killed us that game. It would have been a whole different ball game if we would’ve been stronger behind the service line.”

The Bulldogs took the first two points of the second set and hung close for the first 30 points, but could never get enough of a run together to put any kind of scare in the still unblemished Indians.

“Going into the second set we still had the intensity that we wanted it’s just we couldn’t grasp that lead that we needed,” Pehl said. “We couldn’t gain any momentum.”

Katie Stykel had six kills and Cassie Arndt added five for Aquin, which likely saw its only shot at the conference title slip away with the loss, but Pehl wasn’t the least bit discouraged by her team’s performance against one of the best teams in the state.

“I’m completely proud of how they played,” Pehl said. “I even said before this game I don’t care about the result of this game I just want us to come out and play the way that we’re capable of playing as a team, working together and just going out with the confidence that we should have, and we did.”